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Join the LRR playwrights and special guest Dan Watkins for an insider’s look at standard legal contracts and common pitfalls. This is an exciting opportunity specifically geared toward the playwright.

Working through a project’s life-cycle, we’ll walk through the various stages of contracts and agreements, including commissioning and/or acquisition of underlying rights, initial collaboration, not-for-profit production, commercial production, foreign roll-out and finally non-stage explorations. At the end of this session, you’ll know when to sign and when not to sign contracts.

Dan Watkins is an entertainment lawyer with Levine, Plotkin & Menin LLP representing clients in theatre, film/tv, publishing and new media. The firm’s theatre practice includes representation of the producers of this season’s “Bullets Over Broadway,” “Rocky,” and “Mothers and Sons,” as well as next season’s “The Last Ship” and “An American in Paris.” Prior to this position, Dan was a transactional associate with the law firm of Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison LLP. He received his J.D. magna cum laude from the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law, where he was the managing editor of the Cardozo Law Review, and a B.A. in Musical Theatre from the University of Northern Colorado. Before law school, Dan worked for Aruba Productions, a general management and producing office focused on Broadway, Off-Broadway, and international projects.

Lather Rinse Repeat: A Playwright’s Collective is a select group of New York based playwrights who gather in support of each other’s work. LRR was founded in 2013 by Brandon Marianne Lee and Natalie Wilson. The current LRR lineup is Jen Browne, Tim Duncheon, Tim Errickson, Lauren Ferebee, Mila Golubov, Brandon Marianne Lee, Mariah McCarthy, Isaac Rathbone, Natalie Wilson and Jeremy Wine.

On the heels of our psychotically successful night of shorts, Mistakes Were Made: An Evening of Rom-Com and Political Shorts, Jeremy W. gathered mega-talent Isaiah Tanenbaum for a virtual coffee-side firechat. And thus Selfies 2.9 was borne.

#selfie 2.0 is an interview series where Lather, Rinse, Repeat playwrights interview the actor ensemble for their next night of short plays. Playwrights have free reign over the questions. The interviewee must then post an actual selfie, because we told them to.

Jeremy W.: Cyberstalking you has given me the impression you have a solidly developed nerd side. We’re seeing a embrace of nerdness in our culture; do you think the theatre will sufficiently nerd out?

Isaiah T.: Ack! You’ve discovered my shameful secret! Yes, I’m a huge nerd. I was the kid reading Star Trek books on the school bus, the kid who went to science camp to shoot off rockets, the kid who raced home from his job at the Renaissance Faire to make his weekly online Star Trek roleplaying IRC group (I was a pirate cabin boy and a Betazoid science officer, respectively).

I’m still that nerdy kid, really, so I question whether anything can “sufficiently” nerd out. Nerds are inherent collectors and puzzle-solvers – facts, comics, board games – so there is always an opportunity for more stuff to collect and more puzzles to solve, and that includes theatrical experiences.

I do think, though, that a lot of writers and directors confuse the ephemera of nerd culture – spaceships or robots or comic book action or scientist characters or whatever – for true nerdiness, and it’s totally possible to overdose on that kind of “surface” nerdiness. True nerdy theatre uses these trappings to give the audience a puzzle, an idea, something to chew on. That’s harder than just setting Three Sisters on Mars, but it’s a question of craft, and the end result is simply a Good Play, which there is always, ALWAYS room for. Plenty of playwrights are up to the challenge – Mac Rogers and August Schulenburg come to mind, of course – but I’ve seen more than a few make the “spaceships=nerdy play” mistake. You can do the same with a love story or a crime drama or any other subgenre of narrative, really; just sprinkling a few familiar conventions on top of dull characters and calling it a day. It’s just particularly obvious with “nerdy” plays because the conventions are so in-your-face; when that’s all your play has, it all falls apart pretty quickly.

Jeremy W.: I’m only just getting to know your acting work, but from what I’ve seen in the readings, from role to role, you innately bring to each character that universal need to be an engaged part of proceedings. It’s very compelling. Is that Isaiah coming out or is it a part of your craft?

Isaiah T: That’s really kind of you to say. If there’s anything of Isaiah in there, it’s my kind-of overwhelming personal need to be loved at all times by everyone around me. It’s probably pretty annoying in person but on stage I guess it reads as compelling, so hooray! YOU LOVE ME MY JOB IS DONE.

But seriously, I think it’s back to that nerdy puzzle thing I was talking about before. Why is my character doing X? Solving for X is part of the fun of performing a role. I’ve found that the answer is almost always something like “because another character just did or said Y, for which X is the only response my guy could have in that moment, because he wants Z to happen.” Then of course the director wants something else so I get to decide that, in fact, Q is really the thing I ought to do. But it’s always in response to the other person on the stage, and in the hopes of creating a change in them. This automatically engages me because I’m necessarily aware of what they are doing, and adjusting my responses accordingly. I even do that for monologues; the “other person” is either the audience or some future version of my character, which is to say, me.

This is all probably familiar to other actors who have read Declan Donnellan’s frankly amazing The Actor and the Target. That book was a godsend for me, because I never connected with the emotional sense-memory stuff that my college professor loved. I totally recognize it’s catnip for plenty of amazingly talented actors, but for me, it’s all about objectives and goals and tactics and DOING things. That’s where I live. So The Actor and the Target, combined with Actions: The Actor’s Thesaurus (which is basically a cross-referenced and organized-by-category list of highly specific, active verbs for actors to attach to lines), has formed the core of what I do on stage.

And when all that doesn’t work I just make funny faces.

Jeremy W.: What is your dream hairstyle?

Isaiah T.: Anything. Literally anything. I like to say that my hair has exactly two styles: short, and jewfro. Mine just grows straight out and I look like The Wolfman, so basically it’s been variations of the Ceasar Cut since high school, and will remain as such forever. I am insanely jealous of people who actually have hair they can do anything with. I would kill for something like David Tenant’s infinitely styleable hair. It can do fun hedgehog! It can do long and mopey! It can get pushed back into a mohawk if for some reason he wants that! It can do whatever he wants! DAMN YOU TENANT.

Jeremy W.: For those of us who live under rocks, what is it about your company Flux Theatre Ensemble that keeps you guys trucking along?

Isaiah T: Flux is just amazing. I don’t know what my life as a performer would look like if I hadn’t stumbled in on that group of people in 2006 off of a Craigslist ad (no joke, a Craigslist ad). We’ve been around for eight years now, which in Indie Theatre Years is two eternities and a forever. I think that longevity comes down to three highly-interconnected factors:

1) A tight focus on central operating principles we chose for ourselves that we call our Core Values (Joy, Compassion, Collaboration, Creativity, Excellence). We try to hold ourselves to these values in all things we touch, both in our artistic choices and in our producing choices. After everything we do, from full productions to casting calls to e-blasts, we ask ourselves “now, that thing we did, was it Compassionate? If not, how could it be more so?” And so on, down the list. It’s pretty easy to get lost in the day-to-day of making theatre, and even easier to make expedient choices, but having those five touchpoints to come back to keeps you focused and honest, and in the end a process that is more Joyful/Creative/etc is simply going to be more inspiring, rewarding, and enduring.

2) Our incredible community of fellow artists, collaborators, and audience members (many of whom, including more than a few Rinsers, are officially-designated Friends of Flux). Whether serving as box office volunteers, or running a fundraising committee, or offering props and costumes and expertise and shop-space, or just showing up again and again, the community that has grown up around us has helped us punch well above our weight for years. At this point, most of my personal friends are also Friends of Flux (or just lower-case-f friends of Flux), because that’s how close-knit this community is. When you develop that kind of long-term partnership, you don’t ever want to let anyone down.

3) We do a lot of stuff. Like, a lot. This semester, in fact (yes, I still think of my life in semesters), we’ve had or are having a major Flux event every month: The Annual Retreat, Have Another (our readings-in-a-bar series), a SpeakEasy (a kind of townhall for FoFs), next week’s Food:Soul (more staged readings, but with food), the upcoming Family Feud Benefit Party (please come!), and then another Have Another in December. And of course Flux Sundays nearly every week, which is like actor/playwright gym and just loads of fun. It’s kind of impossible not to keep going when there are so many things happening; there’s simply no chance to let the momentum falter.

And these are all related: our Core Values have attracted that community and kept it tight; the community, in turn, helps us run all these events; the events reward the community by giving them chances to perform and enjoy theatre; when we hew to our values they and we are doubly-rewarded, and we’re all moved to create more stuff to share. It’s like a triple-positive feedback loop and it’s kind of stupidly inspiring to be at the center of it.

Jeremy W.: You seem terribly at home in the theatre in almost every way. Are you as comfortable doing this work as you appear to be?

Isaiah T.: You are like the sweetest interviewer ever.

On the one hand, yes, I’ve always liked it when people listen to me, and it turns out there’s a whole career where actual adults pay real, actual money to buy a ticket where they just sit and listen to me for an hour or two at a time. That’s crazy!

On the other, though, I’m still a little terrified whenever I get up to do it. What if my fly is undone? What if I flub a line? What if I fuck up my blocking? What if I’m thinking about all that so I’m too in my head and they can see that OH GOD THE EYES THEY SEE EVERYTHING THEY CAN SEE MY SOUL HEEEEEELP.

Living somewhere between that pure joy of attention, and the cold, shivering terror of same, is why I keep coming back even when the rational part of my brain says “you know what, maybe you should get a real job or something.” It’s like the best high ever.

To catch Isaiah and all the #LRRit gang in action you’re too late. Don’t miss the next one. Seriously.

Tim E. got chance to connect with actor Jacob Horstmeier recently, and all of Jacob’s deepest secrets are revealed in this week’s episode of SELFIES 2.0.

#selfie 2.0 is an interview series where Lather, Rinse, Repeat playwrights interview the actor ensemble for their next night of short plays. Playwrights have free reign over the questions. The interviewee must then post an actual selfie, because we told them to.

Tim E: Where were you born and raised? What’d you like to do as a kid?

Jacob H: I was born in Madison, WI and raised in Random Lake, WI, a town of about 1500 people. I have three siblings, two older brothers and one younger sister, and while growing up our favorite pastime was breaking any and all rules our parents left us with for the day.

Tim E: Nice. And how’d that lead into you get into theater and acting?

Jacob H: I was introduced to acting by our local community theatre’s summer production of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. I was a part of the children’s chorus and after finishing that experience I thought maybe this was how I wanted to spend the rest of my life.

Tim E: As you’re a native to Madison, I need to know: Favorite picnic salad: Potato, Macaroni, or other?

Jacob H: At the moment, my gut’s telling me potato salad.

Tim E: How did you get connected to LRR? Thru a particular playwright, or thru actor friends?

Jacob H: I got connected to LRR through the lovely Brandon Marianne Lee. She wrote a short adaptation of Shakespeare’s Titus Andronicus for the school at Primary Stages’ Detention Series, and I was lucky enough to be a part of her very funny script.

Tim E: And finally, If you could invite any 5 people (living or dead) to a party, who would you invite?